Tim Hightower "Breakdown" WK 13

by VTramsFan on Dec 11, 2010 10:43 AM CST in 2010 St. Louis Rams season

This week the Rams travel to New Orleans to face a Saints team that is definitely best rushing east and west. With that said, I wanted to take a look at the most successful play Arizona had against the Rams last week, running east and west.

The play was was a nice 32 yard scamper for Tim Hightower down the right sideline and the tackle was made by Dahl. What happened to allow such a long run?

While nabbing an outside linebacker in the draft has been a hot topic around TST lately, I thought I would break this down and analyze LB play and see if this were the cause of this long gainer.

#58 Vobora was blitzing, and Animal Jr. had to step into his role and actually did a phenominal job filling the gap.

Check out the video and the multiple film angles I added this week... ENJOY!

NOTE: Had a lot of people ask how they can get notified of a new breakdown in case it gets pushed down and they miss it... go ahead and subscribe to my YouTube channel http://www.youtube.com/user/VTramsFan (click the big gold button 'Subscribe') and you'll get email notifications.

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A number of things happened on this play

But first, great illustration on this play as well. Love the breakdowns you do VT

1) Great play call against a blitz, which leaves the left edge vulnerable.

2) I believe the offensive play call originally was “off-tackle”. However, Hightower makes a nice decision to break it to the outside to elude Togs. Togs may not have been in the wrong because of the original design, which he guessed on too and would have been in position for a tackle (off-tackle). Credit Hightower with a good decision and speed.

3) This illustration shows what a great WR Fitzgerald is; not only can he run great routes and catch, but he swallowed up Bartell. A 6’3" 218 lb WR can do that to slightly smaller CBs.

by 81 Witness on Dec 11, 2010 11:11 AM CST reply actions

its a pick your poison type of action for togwe

while he prolly should have had faith in the backers for them not to allow the play in the inside and him cover the outside, i dont blame him for taking the inside area either. He had already broke into the inside by the time laurinaitis actually got off the block and had laurinaitis not actually got off the block atogwe would have been in a great position. but had he picked outside he would have given up alot of yards too. Before the play even hit the outside he already shifted his angle cuz he knew laurinaitis was all over the inside ( i wish JL was a little faster) Bartell was taken out by fitz… bartell should have pushed the play inside and right into JL.

by mh39 on Dec 11, 2010 11:12 AM CST reply actions

But this issue of not trusting your teammates to do their job

is at the heart of many big plays. Atogwe’s first move has to be to take care of his own area of responsibility and believe in Lauranaitis to handle his. Over the last few years I have been extremely frustrated watching Rams defenders try to do someone else’s job instead of handling their own first. How many times do you see the ball carrier with one blocker in front make big yards because both our tacklers went to the same side of the blocker and got screened out. If they would just trust in their teammates and take care of their own job, these things wouldn’t happen. The really good defenses have that discipline, which our guys haven’t yet learned.

by andyhawk on Dec 11, 2010 3:16 PM CST up reply actions

Yeah but, in this case..

… It was tough to tell until the very last second. I think atogwe wasnt sure when he looked at it and decided to ensure the play went to the outside. If JL didnt get there, then Hightower has the whole open middle of the field to run it in for a score. Atogwe made him bounce it to the outside so that the sideline could help them get a stop.

All I want for Christmas is a Pete Carroll scowl on week 17!

by leadhead on Dec 11, 2010 4:43 PM CST up reply actions

Like I said, he didn't trust his teammate to do his job.

He couldn’t tell until the last second, but that shouldn’t be his first thought. His first thought has to be handling his own responsibility. Only when he has that covered should he worry about whether Lauranaitis is getting his job done. As it turned out, JL did his job of pushing the play outside, but Atogwe didn’t do his job so it went for a long gain before Dahl got there to make the tackle. If Togs had just done his own job that would have gone for a very short gain. They have to start believing their teammates will each handle their own responsibilities if they want to stop those long gains.

by andyhawk on Dec 11, 2010 10:28 PM CST up reply actions

I wondered the same thing watching this

Did his miss the decision because that whole to the left of the pile visually looked massive and he just didn’t have faith (granted it is a instant decision) in JL to be able to block off that whole gap. On the other hand…. who would. That is a huge gap and JL was awesome for being able to block the whole thing off. Maybe it was Fitz who had to go all the way left in order to get and yardage. I just can’t tell.

by stlfan2004 on Dec 12, 2010 12:17 AM CST up reply actions